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I had looked at the TP for most of the same reasons everyone else
had.The idea of a low cost,simple build,( I may be wrong here )UL was
interesting. Contacting the group,I found out the UL part was nearly
impossible. I chose a larger ac,designed by someone with 50 years of
experience designing homebuilts that became certified and have again
become homebuilts. I decided with costs spread out over 5-6 years and
a VW powerplant made it affordable,and inexpensive to operate.I know
the design is sound, all the numbers have been run, the only thing
that is yet to be determined are my skills and judgement in
construction.

I wouldnt worry about them Bob.
cheap has never been a criteria I've even considered in relation to
aviation.
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That simply means you are wealthy.

The MEDIAN income in the United States is about $28,000 per year.

When the President of the EAA refers to one of Van's kits as
'inexpensive' and the Lycoming to power it as 'affordable' he's
saying homebuilt aviation is only for the wealthy. It's not, but the
bureaucracy that controls the EAA has moved so far from our roots that
they now treat an affordable homebuilt as a special case, something to
be singled-out and pointed to: See? Even poor people can build
airplanes.

About half of my mail comes from those 'poor people.' 'Cheap' is a
valid factor in their homebuilt equation because they have no other
choice.

Being poor does not mean being dumb, any more than flying on the cheap
means an unsafe airframe or an unreliable engine. For the most part,
what it means is that you don't have the option of BUYING solutions to
the problems you encounter; you will have to figure them out for
yourself, perhaps with a bit of help from your friends.

So they solve the problems and go flying. But don't expect to see
these people at Oshkosh or other EAA-sponsored fly-in's. They have
been priced out of the market. Fortunately, there are no traffic cops
in the sky and despite our growing population, America remains mostly
empty space.

-R.S.Hoover

Bob I stuffed up.
the design I actually meant was Izon's Airbike. it looks to me to be a
suberb minimalist aircraft.
the one I quoted in my brain fart looks a little less engineered to
me.

the texas parasol has known structural problems so why people overlook
that just because the plans are free is a mystery to me.

for the poor people you have the Turbulent files I sent. that aircraft
has a 40 year history of safe use. you can give away copies of the
stuff whenever you think it will help someone.

A set of Corby Starlet plans in Australia is $250 form John Corby
himself. for that you get an aircraft that didnt win a design contest
(it was a runner up) was flown to second place in a national
australian aerobatic contest and has a 30 year history of safe use all
over Australia. it was designed by an aeronautical engineer( John
Corby) who did a full stress evaluation on it.

if guys want wooden aircraft which can use alternative timbers the
Druine Turbulent is a good choice. it has a cantilever wing that is
light years ahead of a Bowers Flybaby in aeronautical sophistication.
The Corby Starlet may be less build effort.

$250 in the entire cost of an aircraft is something that I see as an
investment if the plans I'm buying are backed by full structural
analysis.

An engineer is someone who can build for $10 what any idiot can for
$100.
I'm a $10 aviator. I'm not poor. I'm an engineer. oddly I build the
same way the poor people do by choice. theirs is a far more
interesting path and they have nothing to be ashamed of for treading
it. they should tread the path as an engineer though with head held
high.

Ah, now that was kinda spooky, especially when I was reading my own
contributions and then thinking "I don't remember ever posting to
AirTalk..." Then I realised that it's an archive of this RAS thread
(google groups link):

the texas parasol has known structural problems ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But the Chuck-Bird does not.

Let's not get the apples mixed up with the oranges. The original
thread addressed the LAST airplane to be built by a fully competent
builder. The fact it happens to be a parasol is a coincidence,
although citing the Chuck-Bird as a precursor is not.

wrote in message
...
On Jul 26, 11:18 pm, Anthony W wrote:
I did consider building the TP but after all the discussions about it, I
decided not to. With your improvements, I would sure give it more
consideration. I think I downloaded the original plans but I don't know
if I still have them.
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Dear Tony,

You'd best put a smiley on 'improvements' or you'll have all sorts of
TP supporters dancing on your head :-)

IF... you followed the $80 plans, drilling holes where shown then
trying to bolt the thing together... you'd discover that the plans
were WRONG... and that you'd just trashed a lot of aluminum. Take
that to the fabled 'designer' and he would INSIST the plans were
correct, in effect saying 7" was really 11", that everything fit
perfectly well and that if you had a problem with that, it was
entirely YOUR problem.

That's when you realize the Fabled Designer is a few cans shy of a six-
pac.

My 'improvements' were merely corrections to the drawings. They were
fairly extensive because of the stack-up, in that once you'd corrected
the cross-member dimensions you would have to correct the attachment
of the forward lift-strut, the under-cart V-member and so on.

But there were two areas where the plans violated accepted engineering
practice. One was the lift-strut attachment at the spar, the other
was the attachment of the cabanes to the longerons. Since these
errors are to accepted standards virtually ANYONE who saw them would
understand the need for correction. Indeed, suitable corrections have
been included in the archives of the TP Group.

With regard to the wing & spar controversy, I didn't get that far
along before I realized the plans were some sort of scam and dropped
the project. (At that time I was not aware of Richard's mental
problem.) Indeed, given the price of suitable aluminum tubing, from
the outset I was thinking more along the lines of a wooden wing &
tail-feathers.

What first attracted me to the design was the potential to develop a
light, strong fuselage using matched-hole tooling, a factor that
remains valid.

A wing using aluminum tubing spars and foam ribs is surely the
lightest way to go but the performance of such wings is generally poor
due to the scalloping of the cover. By comparison, a wooden wing of
the Ison type -- the same as used by Leonard Mulholland -- performs
very close to spec, thanks to its rigid leading-edge, and may be
extended so as to improve its aspect ratio.

The simplicity of the design is its main attractant but only when that
simplicity is valid. If your landing gear does not align properly or
your bolt-holes violate the rule for edge-distance, it really doesn't
matter how simple the design may be.

-R.S.Hoover

Just for the record, in a structural sense, the discussion of the lift strut
to spar attachment seems to be related to a hole drilled through the sheer
web. I do have a copy of the plans, which I believe include a reinforcement
sleeve--which I would elect to include.

As of this time, all of the plans I have ever seen for "plans-only" aircraft
require some basic knowledge--especially of which parts will necessarily be
"cut and try" and then trim file or sand some more. That has been equally
true of the Vari-EZ and all of the other designs that have appeared around
my local chapter. That has also been true of the "fast glass"
kits--especially the early ones.

So, I am not dissapointed by the fact that a set of drawings, which were
made following the construction and flight of a homebuilt aircraft, won't
result in parts that bolt together as thought they were the result of a type
design. I have no right to expect such a thing!